this was the first time she and joe biden were sharing a stage. she really put in a solid performance. was able to clearly articulate where she stands on all of this. but really kind of faded out of the debate there for a while. some of that by virtue of the fact she wasn t getting a lot of questions addressed to her. but a very solid performance from her as well. now this morning, julian castro, he s not backing down from those comments despite reaction from those on stage and those in the audience last night. yeah, that s exactly right. so you guys played that exchange back and forth. we did a fact check on that here at cnn. it turns out castro is partially correct on that. they are kind of talking at each other and around each other. the facts are that castro supports a medicare for all policy that would automatically enroll everyone. biden s policy would allow for people to buy in to a public option if they wanted to, but would automatically enroll people who could not afford i
this country has had an assault weapons ban. it did in 1994 when a lot of democrats voted against it and a lot of republicans voted for it. clearly, there s a majority for the assault weapon ban. it s somewhere around 60%. it s been consistent. but the reality check is that house democrats are not going to push it to the floor even though they re close to 218 because there are still enough democrats in trump country, trump won districts that are unasseeasy a voting on it. it s a big step on the background checks. it s striking every candidate supports the ban, and it is clearly, if a democratic president will try to do that. the buyback has polled reasonably well for an idea that came out of nowhere. it s in the low 40s to mid-40s. it s about even. and a little below even in some of the other others, but i still, obviously, a huge step. i thought beto o rourke probably had the best night of anybody on the stage last night. i thought he was forceful, passionate, energetic.
stage last night. as you saw bernie sanders, elizabeth warren talking about their proposals. but some of the more moderate candidates, you know, pete buttigieg, amy klobuchar giving vice president biden a little cover and help on his health plan. for the longest time he s been out there kind of as the sole voice saying we should keep the affordable care act, build on it, while medicare for all has also floated around out there from warren and sanders as really the other strong contender as the other option moving forward. and last night you heard buttigieg and klobuchar chiming in about that, talking about that. so it was interesting to see as you said the different wings of that party, the different approaches. health care, of course, if not the major issue in this race for democratic voters. this is what they want to be hearing about. and there are some very different ways forward from all these different candidates. and another person, elizabeth warren, all eyes on her.
you re the front-runner, which makes you the focus. is he a target? we ll see how aggressive it gets. my question is more if you think about last night, is joe biden going to say elizabeth warren was wrong, senator sanders you re wrong, we cannot abolish private health insurance? is he going to draw that line and have that fight now? the moderators will try lead him into it. the question is what does he do when given the opportunity? he has not engaged with anybody. his entire strategy so far since he got into this race has been to avoid any candidate forums where he s on stage with anybody else. so that makes me that phase is over. that phase is over. but wonder to symone sanders, his spokeswoman s point sex, going to try to pretend that phase can continue and last? that s wheeze been doing and there s been this idea he s floating above. that is not a sustainable strategy for him. and i think if he tries to do that tonight then that becomes a line of attack for the other can
presidential politics, national politics. and differentiate himself from hillary clinton, for example. but now he s become a bit more establishment and he s been absorbed by the democratic establishment as a whole. the way he will still try to distinguish himself from the establishment while also being more in line with what voters are looking for sort of in the middle is going to be the interesting with sanders tonight whereas warren didn t see a ton of pushback on her own proposals in terms of talking about medicare for all, he s on stage with not only biden he s got hickenlooper up there, michael bennet. both these democrats have said medicare for all is not the answer. hickenlooper was even booed for saying socialism is wrong. it s not going to be him versus biden. he s going to potentially have to fight back it s a great point. we show you the line-up here, if you put it we know he wants to protect his front-runner status. he thinks bernie sanders and the party s going t